The two leaders in online commerce are Amazon.com and eBay. Despite operating no physical stores of their own, these two companies have built tremendous businesses over the last decade serving millions of customers every day in a broad number of categories. They have taken significant market share from traditional retailers by providing convenience, service, and competitive prices. One has to give each of these companies tremendous credit for their foresight, persistence, and execution through the collapse of the internet bubble, early skepticism, and competition against larger and more established retailers.
There remains, however, one advantage that the major online retailers retain that is both unfair and problematic, for competition and for communities and jobs as well. For customers in many states, Amazon and other online retailers are not required to collect sales taxes on purchases made by their customers. Since the 1992 Quill Supreme Court decision, businesses without a local “nexus” have sold goods through the mail or online without being required to charge and collect the related sales or use tax. Amazon, in particular, has argued that when it doesn’t have a physical presence in a state or local jurisdiction, it is not benefiting from police, fire protection, and other local services and therefore shouldn’t be forced to pay for them. Analyses by others suggest that the real issue is competitive advantage, more than other explanations put forward in the past.1
The real story here is that it is not the payment of taxes or the charging of taxes that is at issue. It is the collection of taxes on behalf of local governments from purchasers of goods and services from stores in a locality or for use in such locality. It is the latter fact that is often ignored. A person who buys products from Amazon.com is required by law to pay sales or use tax to their local jurisdiction. In practice, almost nobody does so. The cost and unpopularity of enforcing such laws has allowed customers to avoid paying sales or use taxes, even though they are required in many states and localities. If you buy a work of art or piece of jewelry in NYC, for example, and have it shipped to New Jersey or California, the seller does not collect sales tax on that purchase but the buyer would be required to pay sales or use tax on the purchase where they receive the merchandise and use the merchandise. So, a piece of jewelry shipped to California would require the buyer to pay California sales or use tax.
Amazon’s domestic business has grown to $12.8 billion in revenues for the year just ended. If you were to apply a 6% sales tax to this revenue (reflecting a rough average of sales taxes across multiple jurisdictions), that would amount to almost $800 million in sales and use taxes owed to state and local governments that is likely not being paid. The good news is that it is $800 million that remains in the hands of the purchasers of products from Amazon, but at the cost of jobs and new fees and taxes required to make up for lost revenue. Having delayed a level playing field for as long as they have already, Amazon has been able to build relationships with many customers that give it an advantage, even playing under the same rules as those it competes against.
I would propose that there be a leveling of the playing field for e-commerce merchants. Either we all collect taxes or nobody collects taxes. If state and local governments are going to require retailers like Sears and Kmart to collect sales taxes and not retailers like Amazon.com, they should recognize that over time their sales tax base will erode significantly and that they place companies who have chosen to locate stores locally at a competitive disadvantage. This will lead to a loss of revenues, the closing of local businesses, the loss of tax revenue, and ultimately to the increase in other types of taxes to compensate for the lost jobs and revenues. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon are states that currently charge no sales tax at all. Let me be clear, we have no issue with continuing our current practice of collecting tax on behalf of state and local governments. We just don’t believe that the current set of rules is sustainable without severe competitive and community damage over time.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Lampert on Online Retail's "Unfair Advantage"
